In recent years, criminal activity by suspects who are not residents of the apartments or other buildings takes place in elevator cars. Consequently, measures have been taken to prevent suspects from entering the building or the elevator car by providing automatic locking systems at the entrance/exit of the building, providing a user identification device at the elevator landing, etc.
As other measures against criminal activity in elevator cars, a glass window may be provided in the door of the car so that the interior of the car can be seen from the landing on each floor, or a monitoring camera may be mounted in the car. In addition, an emergency button is provided inside the elevator car as a means of letting those on the outside know that criminal activity is taking place.
However, said automatic locking systems and user identification devices cannot completely prevent suspects from entering the building or elevator car. Also, when a glass window is provided in the door to prevent criminal activity in the elevator car, the criminal activity is unlikely to be discovered if nobody is in the landing. Also, said emergency button can be used to send an alarm only after the criminal activity has taken place, so that it is not sufficient for preventing the criminal activity. In addition, the monitoring camera may be assumed to be a dummy, so that mounting the monitoring camera alone is insufficient to prevent criminal activity.
The following device has therefore been proposed: the interior of the car is connected with a means of communicating with a manager's office; when the destination floor registration button is pushed inside the car, the image of the manager appears on a monitor inside the car to let persons in the car know that the interior of the car is being monitored by the manager. As a result, criminal activity can be prevented, and users of the elevator can feel safe. (See: Patent Reference 1—Japanese Kokai Patent Application No. Hei 6[1994]-72651.)
However, there may be no manager's office in the building. Also, even when a manager's office is present, the manager usually is not in. This is especially true at night when criminal activity most frequently takes place. Consequently, there is a need for the site communicating with the interior of the car not to be limited to the manager's office in the building, but also to include a remote monitoring center that monitors elevator operation, etc.
On the other hand, many elevator users do not like being monitored while using the elevator. Consequently, there is a need for a system that allows sending an alarm to the manager's office or monitoring center only when the elevator user senses danger in the presence of a suspect. Even with such a system, however, the suspect notices and thus carries out a criminal act before the user can finish manipulating the alarm device. Also, manipulation of the alarm device may aggravate the suspect and cause the criminal act. In addition, a resident may be mistaken for a suspect.
The objective of this invention is to provide a type of device characterized by the following facts: when a user and a suspect are in the same elevator car, the user can send an alarm to the monitoring room to warn of a sense of danger without being noticed by the suspect and without aggravating the suspect; at the same time, it is also possible to effect transmission to the car that the interior of the car is being monitored without aggravating the suspect.